Return Of The Post Moderns

Song Meaning

The lyrics paint a surreal, almost Dadaist collage of American life, juxtaposing fleeting pleasures with the anxieties of consumerism and a strange, detached violence. We open with "ten cent lovers" and "wet dreams," hinting at cheap thrills and ephemeral desires, immediately contrasted with "high stool sweet tarts" who "chomp their 401ks." This sets up a tension between immediate gratification and the relentless, almost absurd pursuit of financial security, all delivered with a detached, almost clinical observation. The imagery then shifts to a more unsettling, almost post-apocalyptic scene. The search for an "army drab container" and "carbon dating clothes / For the / Last time they were washed" suggests a world where even basic hygiene has become a relic, a forgotten luxury. The names like "Shelby and Sheila" and "Stanton, Harry Dean" feel like fragments of pop culture or personal history, dropped into this disorienting landscape without clear context, adding to the feeling of disconnectedness. The most jarring section arrives with "Preschool mothers / In Technicolors / Are fire bombing Dresden." This is a profound, unsettling image that weaponizes innocence against historical atrocity, creating a disjunction between the domestic and the horrific. It’s followed by the bizarre feeding of "line caught tuna to / A neutered Bodhisattva" and the violent, almost nonsensical act of "Beating Herbert Hoover with / A leather tipped / Pinata" on the White House lawn. These images feel like a critique of power, spiritual emptiness, and the absurdities of political theater, all amplified by the repeated, insistent "Return." This relentless "Return" acts as a refrain, a desperate plea or a cyclical inevitability. It suggests a loop, a failure to progress or escape the bizarre, violent, and consumerist cycles depicted. The lyrics’ effectiveness lies in this disorienting, almost hallucinatory assembly of disparate images, forcing the listener to confront a fragmented, unsettling vision of contemporary experience where pleasure, anxiety, and violence are inextricably, and absurdly, intertwined.